This invention relates in general to an improved crimping head for use in both hand operated and semiautomatic crimping machines. In particular, the head finds use in crimping removable crimp style electrical socket contacts of the type designed to mate with square or round pin contacts. Typical of such contacts are those manufactured by Berg Electronics, Inc. and marketed under the trade name of Berg Spot-O-Gold Mini PV Contacts.
Mini PV contacts are available in either loose piece or continuous strip form depending on whether they are to be utilized with a hand operated or semiautomatic crimping machine, respectively. Typically, contacts such as the Berg Spot-O-Gold include a donut shaped connecting piece which is used to interconnect the contacts when they are in strip form. When a strip of contacts is cut into loose piece form, the donut shaped connecting piece (tail section) remains attached to each contact.
When used in a hand operated crimping tool, the connecting tail is cut off and discarded prior to crimping the contact. Similarly, when the contacts are utilized in strip form, for example, in a semiautomatic crimping machine, the connecting tail is automatically cut off as the crimping operation is performed.
Crimping tools for crimping mini PV contacts to the prestripped end of insulated wires are known in the prior art. Typical of such tools are the Berg Electronics, Inc. Models HT-95, PV-200 and PV-250. The Model HT-95 is a hand operated tool and in use each contact's tailpiece is normally cut off by the operator prior to inserting the contact in the tool. In the Models PV-200 and PV-250, both of which are semiautomatic machines, the contact tailpiece is automatically cut off as the contact is crimped onto a wire.
As previously mentioned, mini-PV contacts are used to connect electrical wire conductors to square or round pin contacts. Often, these pin contacts are in close proximity to each other and consequently so are the mini-PV contacts which plug onto the pin contacts. This condition makes it difficult to access the mini-PV contacts with a voltmeter or oscilloscope probe. This undesirable condition is compounded by the fact that in the prior art the crimped mini-PV contacts do not provide a hook on which to attach an electrical probe.
It is a general object of the present invention to overcome these and other drawbacks of the prior art by providing an improvement to the Berg crimping tool which forms a probe hook from the tailpiece of a mini-PV contact while simultaneously crimping the contact on a wire conductor.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a crimping tool head for crimping mini-PV contacts which does not require removal of the contact's tail section prior to crimping the contact on a wire.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the detailed description of the preferred embodiment when read in conjunction with the drawings.